The state’s highest court ruled Thursday that a notorious criminal will face a single trial for the murders of a 12-year-old Orange County girl and four women in Los Angeles County, including a secretary whose body was found in El Segundo and a nurse at an Inglewood hospital.

The California Supreme Court ruling sets aside a decision by an appeals court that ordered two trials on the charges against Rodney Alcala, 64.

Alcala has spent more than 20years on Death Row in connection with the killing of 12-year-old Huntington Beach resident Robin Samsoe, and during that time his convictions were overturned twice. He was brought back to Orange County in October 2003 for his pending third trial.

Meanwhile, he was indicted in 2005 on murder charges stemming from the 1978 deaths of Charlotte Lamb, 32, of Santa Monica, and Jill Parenteau, 21, of Burbank.

Lamb was found strangled in the laundry room of an apartment in the 600 block of Illinois Court in El Segundo on June 24, 1978. The manager found her nude, except for a few pieces of jewelry and one shoe, according to Daily Breeze reports.

Alcala had already been charged separately with the Dec. 16, 1977, bludgeoning and rape of Georgia Wixted, 28, of Malibu.

Wixted, a nurse at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood, was found naked in her home with a hammer near her body. Blood found at the crime scene linked Alcala to her murder in 2003 and charges against him for her death were filed in Los Angeles then.

The fourth victim of the alleged serial killer, according to prosecutors, was Jill Barcomb, 18, who was slain not long after moving to California from New York in 1977.

In 2006, Orange County Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno ruled that all five cases could be combined and tried in Orange County.

In arguing for a consolidated trial, Gina Satriano of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office cited a section of the Penal Code that allows “for judicial and witness economy” as long as there is “no denial of due process.”

Defense attorney George Peters contended that in light of the two reversals in the Samsoe case, prosecutors were trying to ensure another conviction by inflaming the jury with evidence of the other cases.

Alcala is due in court again on Aug. 8.

Alcala’s youngest alleged victim disappeared near the Huntington Beach Pier on June 20, 1979, while on the way to ballet class on a friend’s bicycle.

Her badly mutilated body was found in the Angeles National Forest 12 days later.

Alcala was convicted of murdering the child in 1980 and sent to Death Row. But the California Supreme Court ruled that evidence of his prior attacks on young girls was improperly admitted at trial.

Alcala had served time for attacking an 8-year-old girl with a pipe in 1968, and completed another term for an attack on a 14-year-old girl.

He was convicted again in 1986 of the Samsoe slaying and re-sentenced to death, but a state appeals court panel ruled the second jury should not have been allowed to consider testimony of the Forest Service firefighter who found the girl’s remains.

The appellate court noted that an earring containing Lamb’s DNA and an earring allegedly taken from the 12-year-old’s ear were found in a pouch in a locker that Alcala allegedly tried to hide from authorities. The justices also wrote that a jewelry box belonging to Parenteau had been rifled.

Wixted’s body was found in her home with a nylon stocking wrapped around her neck and massive head injuries from a hammer that may also have been used to mutilate her genitals.

The defense has argued that the cases are strikingly different – Robin was a young girl while the others were women who were violently sexually assaulted.

While Alcala’s defense centers on mistaken identity, the appellate justices previously noted similarities in all five cases.

All of the victims suffered severe strangulation and blunt force trauma injuries, according to the evidence.

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